ASUS PB278Q 27-inch WQHD Monitor Review

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Subjective Analysis

While DisplayMate lays out a monitor's performance in black and white (and blue and green and red and...), we also take into consideration a subjective analysis. After all, you're not purchasing a monitor to view test patterns for hours on end. To see how the PB278Q performs in the real world, we viewed a series of high definition movies and fired up a few games. Torturous, we know, but hey, you guys are worth every minute of our entertainment.

Subjective Tests

HD Movie Playback and Gaming

Ted @ 1080P

Movie buffs are in for a treat with the PB278Q, both because of the HDMI connectivity (makes it easy to hook up a Blu-ray player) and due to 27 inches of screen real estate. Movies looked crisp during out testing, and we saw no abnormal effects in dark or brightly lit scenes.

On the flip side, visuals lacked the pop (for lack of a better term) than we've seen from some higher quality 30-inch panels. It's not that movies ever looked bad -- they didn't -- the panel just didn't sock us in the face with dazzling color reproduction. Unless you've spent some time testing a higher end monitor, it's not something you're likely to notice, and the PB278Q certainly looks better than your average TN panel.

Dirt 2

We never know what to expect from a monitor when it comes to gaming. Sure, we can look at the spec sheet and, in this case, see that it boasts a 5ms response time (gray to gray), but it's all too easy to fudge the numbers. Therefore, we put very little stock into rated specs and make our determination on what our eyeballs have to communicate.

Well, our eyeballs loved the PB278Q for game playing. Again, a higher end 30-inch panel might look a little better overall, graphics came alive during our game tests. More importantly, fast moving scenes showed absolutely no ill effects. The slight bit of blur you see above is from our camera, not the game play.